Olympiakos F.C. was founded in 1925, when the members of "Piraeus Football Club" and of "Piraeus Fans Club FC" decided, during a historical assembly, the dissolution of the two clubs and the foundation of a new one. Notis Kamberos announced the name OLYMPIAKOS and Michalis Manouskos completed it to OLYMPIAKOS FAN CLUB OF PIRAEUS.

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The Legend

The players of the newly founded Olympiakos were excellent. The Andrianopoulos brothers, however, were those who raised the reputation and added glory to the club. Children of a prosperous family, they made the name of Olympiakos known all over Greece.

The legendary Andrianopoulos brothers.

Yiannis, Dinos, Giorgos and Vassilis were the first to play. Later on, Leonidas made his appearance, while Stelios also played for a short time. The five brothers in the offence became a legend. That's why Olympiakos is called "Legend". Olympiakos' emblem is a laurel-crowned adolescent and the club's colors are red-white.

In 1926, at the first Greek Championship, Olympiacos had a dispute with the EPO and the EPO banned all teams from playing against them. In the same year, Panathinaikos and AEK banded with Olympiacos and formed POK, a group of the three main Athenian teams that showed solidarity against the EPO in response to their expulsion from the Greek League and all three teams were expelled from the league in 1928 for Olympiacos' sake. They were reinstated the next year.

A winning team

Olympiacos won the Greek Championship for the first time in the 1930-31 period and has since become the most decorated Greek team winning the Greek Championship 32 times out of a total of 68. Indeed they have more championships to their name than arch-rivals AEK Athens and Panathinaikos FC put together.

In 1963, Panathinaikos stood by Olympiacos and POK and it helped Olympiakos when, due to a conflict with the Greek Football Association, Olympiakos was not allowed to make use of the Karaiskaki stadium. As a result Olympiakos had no place to train or play. Loukas Panourgias, a board member at Panathinaikos, arranged for Apostolos Nikolaidis Stadium to be the temporary home of Olympiakos for its training and matches.

The team also holds the record for the greatest number of consecutive Championships won: Seven during the 1996-97 to the 2002-03 periods. (Previous record was also held by Olympiakos: Six during the 1953-54 to 1958-59 period).

The dark days

Olympiakos then lived their darkest days between the mid-1980s and mid-90s.In the mid-80’s Olympiakos came into the hands of Greek tycoon George Koskotas. Soon after, Koskotas was accused of and convicted for embezzlement, leaving Olympiacos deep in debt. On the pitch, the team went ten years without a league title from 1987-97. But for the intervention of Constantine Mitsotakis, Greece’s prime-minister at the time, Olympiacos’s outstanding debts would have led to the club’s relegation. Instead, Mitsotakis passed Olympiakos on to Socrates Kokkalis, a figure just as controversial as Koskotas, thus saving the club.

Modern era

Socrates Kokkalis celebrating with his players.

The situation improved after Socrates Kokkalis took over Olympiakos's shares of in 1993, having agreed a settlement of the club's debts with the Greek government. Kokkalis slowly resurrected the team, his most significant step being to hire Dusan Bajevic as coach in the summer of 1996. Ever since, Olympiakos have been Greek champions - even after Bajevic left in 1999.

On April 27, 2005, Olympiakos beat AEK during the end of the extra time, the score was 2-1. Olympiakos advanced to the finals on Wednesday May 25, 2005 and won the game against Aris winning one more double.

After the playoffs and the victory, Olympiakos' previous coach Dusan Bajevic of Serbia resigned under the pressure of a fraction of the fans and also due to the indecisiveness of the board concerning his future. Trond Sollied of Norway replaced him who, in turn, was replaced in December of 2006 by Takis Lemonis. In March, 2008, Lemonis was sacked.

Olympiakos' best moments in Europe came with appearances in the 1992/93 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup quarter-finals - where they lost to Club Atlético de Madrid - and in the last eight of the 1998/99 UEFA Champions League, when Juventus FC beat them.